


The Dark Place

by Kylo_Rens_Slashed_Face (gorgonbunny)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everything Hurts, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:36:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9340061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgonbunny/pseuds/Kylo_Rens_Slashed_Face
Summary: Where Ben must go, Poe cannot follow.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Ben/Poe fic, and shit is it dark. I'm so sorry.

 

It was coming, again. They were coming and it always came with them, inescapable, like a shadow. It crept into the edges of his vision. He held his face in his hands to shield himself, but it crept through his fingers. It slipped in and surrounded him as insidiously as seaweed around a man drowning in a cold, black, unforgiving sea. It slipped in, but if he tried to shake it out, it clung like it had barbs, and twisted its way deeper into him like it had roots.

He had become sensitive to their approach. He could sense them before they entered the cell block. He could sense how many there were--four, this time.

His guts knotted, a gnarled cramping that extended into his stomach and chest, then into his arms. It was a pain he wouldn't wish on anyone. Well, anyone except _them_. If any one of themcould be forced to feel this, feel like their soul, their goodness was being crushed by a giant hand, he wouldn't feel sorry for them.  Any of them — if he was ever given the chance to squeeze their guts in his own hands, he probably would. He would kick their heads until their skulls shattered. He would stomp their chests until their ribs cracked and crush their hearts under his boot.

_No. No._

_Mustn’t think those thoughts. They are only tools, anyway. Break the tool, and the wielder will use another tool. I must break the wielder._

_Yes_

_But_

_Even if they are only tools they would still deserve it._

_Yes._

Thoughts of torturing and killing them made his stomach flutter, easing the pain.

“Poe?” he said. 

“Yes, Ben, I'm here,” came Poe’s voice from behind the wall.

“They’re coming, and...I'm going to the Dark Place,” Ben said, clutching his head, trying to suffocate the evil thoughts.

“Ben, listen to me. You are strong. You are stronger than them. Don't let them drive you to the Dark Place. I love you. I know you are strong—”

“I can't, Poe. I can't do it by myself, it's too strong, I can't fight it.” Ben said.

“I'm here, I'm right here. I'm with you. You're not alone, you’re never going to be alone, I promise.”

It hurt so much to fight it. If he let it in, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. If he let the Dark surround him, it protected him, it numbed the pain. The Dark made him feel strong, fighting it made him suffer.

 

————————

The first time they had come, he fought and kicked and yelled and bit. He didn’t think anything could be more painful -- until he heard Poe screaming from the other side of the wall, “Let him go! Stop, you monsters! Stop!” That tore his heart. The pain they inflicted on him was nothing compared to the pain in Poe’s desperate, futile pleas. After that, he tried to make as little noise as possible, hoping to conceal the pain they were causing him from Poe.

Poe still knew when they came, though, could hear them through the wall, and they knew it. They started making more noise, laughing, shouting, “He likes this! Look he ain’t even squirming!” Of course, without fail, Poe would become infuriated and spew curses that Ben had never heard come from his lips before.

Ben knew it broke Poe’s heart that he couldn’t help. The feeling of helplessness tortured Poe worse than any physical pain could. They never physically assaulted Poe, though, or even went in his cell, from what he could tell, and Ben was grateful for that.

He didn’t know what they wanted. They never demanded any information, they never told him he was being held for ransom or gave any reason at all. It seemed that they just had fun torturing him. Ben tried to deprive them of the pleasure by collapsing in on himself, becoming a shell, and that’s when the Dark found him. The Dark found him and hid him, protected him from them. The deeper he went into its inky, cold folds, the safer he felt. But, the deeper he went, the harder it was to find his way back.

He told Poe about it. He called it The Dark Place because it was a place, vast and tumultuous like an ocean-sized labyrinth with ever-changing walls. Ben tried to stay only on the edges, slipping only mostly inside, keeping a small bit of him exposed so he could claw his way out again. He worried that if he went in too far, he would forever be trapped.

While he was there, buffered from the attacks on his body, Dark thoughts would invade his mind. He would have visions of killing and causing pain, and these would comfort him and make him feel strong. The visions got more violent as time went on, and would provide more than comfort, but gratification and sometimes even delight. It didn't feel wrong at the time, and only when he pulled himself back out did he realize that those visions were hateful and malicious. 

Once, after they had finished and left him lying on the floor, Ben snapped open his eyes, knowing they were gone because the weight that had been grinding him into the rough stone floor was absent, but he didn’t know how long they had been gone.

He heard Poe yelling, “Ben! Are you there? Please be there!”

“I’m here, Poe, I’m here,” Ben said. He tried to move, but his body refused to cooperate, parts of him felt numb, while other parts jolted with pain.

“Ben? I thought...I didn’t know if...Shit, you weren’t answering...I thought…”

“I’m sorry, Poe, I went to the Dark Place, and I don’t know, it was like it wanted me to stay there. It tried to keep me there.” That was the first time Ben realized the danger of the Dark Place. It wanted him to have those evil thoughts, and the more he enjoyed it, the further it enveloped him, dragging him toward an even darker heart. He had thought it was protecting him, but it was luring him.

“Ben, don’t go there again, please. You’re strong, you’re strong without going there. That’s a bad place.”

“I know, I just…”

“It’s what they want. They are trying to warp your mind, you can’t let them,” Poe’s voice stuttered. Ben knew that he was crying.

“I don’t know what they want,” Ben said.

“They know you have potential power, and they want to bend it to their will. They want to make you something you’re not. When you go to this Dark Place, it’s not you, you are kind and sweet. Don’t let them turn you into a monster. You have to fight it.”

Maybe Poe was right. Poe was often right about things that Ben was blind to. Poe spent a lot of their childhood pointing out the obvious to Ben.

Poe seemed to find Ben’s obliviousness endearing when most people would have been frustrated out of their minds. Like his father and mother, and even sometimes his uncle Luke, who had an ungodly level of patience. Ben loved that Poe didn’t get angry with him, and that eventually turned into loving Poe.

And that love eventually led to Poe being made to suffer right next to him. From their adjoining cells they could hear each other, but not see or touch each other. Ben wanted so much just to hold Poe again.

 

————————

 

 _They_  were closer.

 

“I’m sorry,” Ben said.

 

The cell door opened.

 

_I have to go to the Dark Place, I’m sorry, Poe._

 

“If I don’t come back, this time, know that I love you, and if I could have any wish, it would be to hold you in my arms again.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sixty-three days after Ben had gone missing, General Organa summoned Poe Dameron to her office. He respected her greatly, his parents had been friends with her and her brother, Luke Skywalker, and Luke had given them a special tree once, so he knew that their friendship ran deeper than merely a General-officer relationship. But he dreaded seeing her that day.

Poe had spent all his extra time since Ben’s disappearance trying to locate him, only sleeping when on the verge of exhaustion. He first heard a rumor that it was some Neo-Imperialists who wanted a Force user and were trying to brainwash him, then that it was an enemy of Han Solo, possibly a Hutt, seeking revenge, then that he had left of his own accord, fed up with the pressure of his “legacy”.

He hadn't been sure what to believe. But he followed up on every, single lead. Every lead he had gotten, however, had been a dead end. But he wasn’t going to give up hope that easily. They had a connection, or, at least they had convinced themselves that they did, and Poe was certain that if Ben was gone, he would know.

He had dreams about him, alone in a cell, and he would try to say comforting things to him. But, sometimes he would dream about Ben’s captors and be unable to do anything to help Ben except scream at them to stop. They were awful nightmares that he had to shake himself awake from. But then felt a burning remorse for leaving Ben there.

Anytime he felt Ben calling to him in the back of his brain, he would say, “I’m here, you’re not alone.”  He would ask, beg the Force, every day to let Ben know that he was coming, that he was going to find him, and to hold on just a little longer. He felt in his heart that Ben heard him, imagined him saying, “I’ll try.”

A few times, more and more often, he felt that Ben was getting further away, fading, getting smaller in his mind, and he would say, "Don't give up," as many times as needed to pull him back. And Ben would come back, as if by sheer force of will. It had been taking longer and longer, though, to will him back. He knew Ben couldn't hang on much longer. 

Then, the day prior, when Poe felt Ben, he no longer sensed desperation but regret. When Poe beseeched him to 'hold on',  the response had been, “I tried,”

then, “I’m sorry."

Poe pounded his head.

_Don’t give up don’t give up don’t give up don't give up_

Not sure if he was telling Ben or telling himself.

He had spent the night reaching out for Ben, begging the Force for him to come back. But Ben didn't come back. 

So, when he got the message that the General wanted to see him, his heart plummeted. He promised himself he wouldn’t cry, that would make things worse, Organa was already hurting, and he had to be strong, for her, for Ben.

  
“Come in, Poe,” Organa said with a sad smile.

Poe nodded, ”General.”

It was raining and droplets streamed down the window, the dim light casting a grim, gray tone onto the room. It seemed fitting. Unwelcome, but fitting.

“Has there been word?” Poe had wanted to sound hopeful, but in the end, the words squeaked out of his mouth.

Organa looked him in the eyes and with respect and poise, told him, “I’m sorry.”

Poe’s eyes filled with tears he could not hold back no matter how hard he tried.

She hugged him. He hugged her back, but all he wanted to do was run. He wanted to run as fast as he could, as far as he could, make it all never happen.

After he left her office, telling her politely that he wanted some time alone, he did run. He ran though the shipyard, and then through the grassy field, then into the forest. He didn’t want to think about anything because all his memories led back to Ben. He tripped a few times, his vision blurry and the terrain rocky, but got up and kept running. When got too tired to run, he continued to stumble through the thick, lush greenery.

He came to a cliff overlooking a river and considered if he should just keep going, step right off and see what happens.

He might even end up with Ben.

He laughed, it wasn’t funny.

Now that he had stopped running, his thoughts caught up with him. He didn’t want to believe her, but she wouldn’t have told him unless she knew it to be true. She had tried to give some details but was too distraught and Poe spared her the pain, spared them both the pain. But she had given him the report on a small datapad, which he had immediately shoved in a pocket without looking at it.

He now slipped it out of his pocket, his hands shaking. He didn’t want to know, but he had to know. The report was blunt and dispassionate: Ben had been captured, tortured and killed by a fringe group that was possibly linked to the old Empire, and whose single-minded mission was to eradicate any Jedi or potential Jedi. 

He laughed again. Ben never even wanted to be Jedi, he wanted to be a pilot so that he and Poe could fly around the Galaxy together. Ben had often joked about how his Force abilities had unfairly chosen his future for him.

He dropped the datapad into the river.

_You were right, the Universe played a cruel trick on you, on both of us._

His mind went to the last time he had seen Ben. He didn’t want it to, but it was better than imagining what might have happened after.

Poe had been working on an X-wing, his head poking into the engine compartment when Ben had walked up. Ben had wanted Poe to go with him to check out some dusty old Jedi relic somewhere — Poe was only paying half attention, and with the engine running it had been hard to hear. He had told Ben he would go, but that he had to finish the repairs, which shouldn’t take too long.  The engine had been noisy and Poe hadn't bothered to remove his head from the engine compartment so Ben must have misheard him because he went without him. 

_I couldn’t leave you alone for one second without you getting yourself into trouble, you idiot._

He sunk to his knees and cried.

_I tried, Ben, I tried to find you, but I didn’t try hard enough._

He noticed that the light was getting darker. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting on the cliff edge. It was stupidly peaceful here, this place didn’t care about all the strife and turmoil in the Galaxy, everything was so nice and calm. Rain danced through the branches and leaves. The air smelled earthy, of dead leaves and fresh flower buds.

He didn’t want to go back and face the painful truths. He didn’t want to live in that awful existence. He wanted to go back to find Ben in the grassy field by the shipyard, struggling to lift a rock with the Force, Ben would invite him over to sit next to him, and he would warn Ben not to sit on a particular patch of grass because it has ants in it, Ben would hear him too late, of course, and plop down, and that would be the biggest of their problems. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Ben, flying around the Galaxy together, getting into shenanigans, Ben being a big goof and him loving him for it.

But, that wasn’t to be.

Poe looked up at the gray, uncertain sky.

_I should have been with you. Even if I couldn’t have stopped it, at least you wouldn’t have been alone._

 

_\------------_


End file.
